A flibbertigibbet post for a Slow Sunday...

 Hello - I meant to post here last week & the week before that & the week before...well you get the picture... but I just can't seem to get my act together... I'm flitting from project to project to project ... focus was never a strong suite of mine.

As for problems... the furnace is paid off... the house seems to be warmer at the same temperature setting and the humidifier works!!  No more shocking myself as I walk across the room. Now my dental woes continue... I ended up going back to my regular dentist and he assured me he could pull the throbbing tooth quickly (like under 30 seconds) without IV sedation... costs lots less money... so I did get the nitrous oxide and he got the tooth out... took longer to stitch it up ... it is healing nicely... but then........ a tooth on the other side of my mouth has been hurting on and off... went back to the dentist's office (that made 3 visits in 3 weeks...arggghh)... the offending tooth was crowned 30 years ago, BUT it did not have a root canal... don't know why... but it appears that what it needs now IS a root canal...arrrggghhh again... so now I have an appointment with an endodontist for a evaluation for a root canal... not sure how this will all go but the idea of drilling through a crown doesn't sound like fun. 

So let's shift gears and talk about more pleasant things... like the many many many many projects I've started ... but not finished... Here's my design wall... 

It started with this tulip, a freebie from the FQS QAL last year called Sewcialites... it is block #24 and you can find it here on the Jolly Jabber blog... it comes in 3 sizes, this is the largest...finishes 9"...

I want to make a wall quilt with this block...that blue background fabric is at least 20 years old... it is Hoffman Painted Desert... it came in a couple of colorways... it is good to have stash...LOL... 

but then a friend made the block in Tilda fabrics....ooooohhh... I have a bunch of Tilda's I've been wanting to play with...so I made a Tilda tulip block...

I like this A LOT... this may be the collection for the wall quilt...and since I had all my Tilda's out I know I want to make a bed size quilt out of them too... something where you can see the pretty prints... that Charming Stars pattern is  a fav of mine...another freebie you can find here... and I found a lovely tone on tone creamy white floral for the stars... in my stash... did I say how good it is to have stash???

Oh this will be very nice... but then the tulips started talking again and  I wanted to see what the littlest size would look like... 3" finished... so I made 9 of them...

insert little squeal...this will make a cute mini quilt... still needs sashing/border/quilting... it's on my list of thing to do...LOL

Oh and then I was scrolling through IG and came across this block... Treehouse Crossroads... how would that look in my Jen Kingwell fabrics?

Well it looks good!!  Need to do a quilt with this block and these fabrics... gonna try to keep it to a throw size... fingers crossed...  you can find the pattern here... and here are some other versions on IG. And then there was more scrolling on IG and I saw another quilt I liked called Vanishing Time...and while I've just finished TWO quilts using my Momo fabrics I still want to play with them... sooooo I had to make a couple of blocks...

Now I like the first layout better than the second one but it will take more blocks to have it come out symmetrical... so I may go for the second one... 25 blocks would make a nice throw ... here's a link to the construction of this one... it is a riff on the disappearing 9 patch idea... I've already cut about 100 5" squares for this one... lots of different prints... still need to cut the Momo's... 

And there is a quilt I want to do for my son... got the fabrics... changed my mind several times but think I've settled on this pattern... Pointed Possibilities... this is a bad screenshot....

 you can see it here... it's a freebie... haven't started it....yet... but I can really want to get it going...

Oh and here is my latest toy... a We R Memory Keepers project cart... I got it here from Joanns... I like that the trays come out but there is a lip on the back side so they don't slide all the way through... 

I'm thinking about spray painting it a prettier color once it warms up outside... I wish they had made it in white... 

And if you think that was a lot of different projects going on...well... I'm not doing much better where crossstitch is concerned... I do have a couple of finishes... First is Snow Day from Prairie Schooler...

And then there is this freebie from Wendy at From the Heart Needleart called Love Mini Quaker... 

You can get this freebie by signing up for her newsletter...look here. 

I did this one on 32 ct linen dyed with Rit Aquamarine...the floss is DMC 4210 ... a variegated red... the beads are Mill Hill... check out my IG post and see how I marked the spacing for the beads with a Frixion pen... best idea I've had in a long time. 

And I pulled out my BBD Oh Joyous Day and made some progress there..

And then I got distracted and got out Bower Birds and stitched a couple of letters...

OMG...the color on this is awful!!! IRL is it a lovely spring green ... yellowy green... I hate the camera on my phone!!! I tried to adjust it and it looks better on my phone than on here... sorry...

And then I saw this piece on IG... Brite Birds by Kathy Barrick... a freebie that I tracked down here... 

And AGAIN the color here is soooo offf....the linen was  dyed with Apple Green Rit and the floss is the left over bits and piece of a multitude of skeins of Gentle Arts Dried Thyme... it is one of my favorite greens but the dye lots are all over the place, so I when I start a new project I get a new skein ... so I have a whole flossaway bag of leftovers... 

And I was watching MommaLovesYouGB and saw this adorable chart...which of course I started...

And explain to me why the green linen on this one is showing up pretty true ??? The other two are just a lighter shade of this one...  Anyway you can find the PDF here... 

Sooooooooooooo many things I WANT to do... I do think if you looked in the dictionary at the word flibbertigibbet my picture would should up there.... LOL...  and for a short month there are a lot of things I HAVE to crammed into it... I have a mammogram this week and a haircut... last week was a semi-annual eye appointment that requires they dilate my eyes...ugh... and like I said I've had 3 dentist appointments with 2 more the last week of February  and a semi-annual check up for my son too. 

However today is the SUPER BOWL... and the Cincinnati Bengals are playing ... OMG... it has been 30 years since they've been good... so I'll be parked in my stitching chair cheering them on... it's been too long since the city had a winning sports team.... WHO DEY!!

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts... I know I'll need check out what everyone else is up to... and probably find some more things I want to do... I'm hopeless... hope you have a great week ahead!!!

happy stitching and everything else!!

carol fun 

Well that's not how I saw this going... on a Slow Sunday...

Hello... so how are all of you doing?  It is 2 weeks into a new year and I have to say that for me, things that have happened are not how I saw it going... and oh I hope this is not an omen for the total year...I'm trying to convince myself that I'm packing all the bad stuff into January and when it is over things will be better... now don't jump to conclusions, no one has died, but lots of things are just off... 

first, I steeled myself to go back to the dentist and as I expected  more of those root canaled/crowned teeth from 30 year ago are infected and will need to be extracted... argghhhh... I went to see a no-fear dentist that can do the IV sedation which increases the cost of this but I don't think I can do it any other way... It's been a week and still waiting on a response from the insurance company as to how much they will pay and how much I will be out of pocket. 

then a routine furnace check up ended up being a new furnace and humidifier purchase... arggghh...now the old furnace was 16 years old (I looked up the average life span of a furnace 16-20years). It could have been repaired but the cost of parts alone was 50% of the price of a new furnace and it was no sure thing that all the parts could be obtained. Soooooo... I had them put in a new furnace. I knew this would be coming eventually. I bought the house 8 years ago "AS IS"... I know the roof is only about 7 years old (I figured that out looking at the county auditor's website aerial  pictures.)   Next BIG item is probably the AC unit.  Not gonna think about that now Scarlett. 

the company I have my cell phone with got bought up and then sent new SIM cards to put in the phone.  I knew this would be some kind of problem and it was. I have 4 phones on the account. The first phone the transfer went easily, the second phone...my phone... was a fiasco that ended up with a loooong phone call with a person who was not US based who I had a lot of trouble understanding and had to have her repeat everything. And if I hadn't had my son and his phone right there I would have had to take it to a TMobile store to be fixed. In the end  the phone works but I lost some text messages...annoying.

and as I sat down to write this post my laptop just turned itself off.... poof... it is plugged in so it shouldn't be the battery but all I have is a black screen. Luckily I do have a back up laptop and that's what I'm using now. My son had a problem with his laptop about 2 weeks ago. It stopped connecting to the internet. He never could figure out how to fix it but after about 48 hours it worked again.  I'm hoping that might be the case for mine. If not I'll take it to some repair place on Monday.  All of these devices I'm talking about are inexpensive chromebooks and up to this time we've never had problems with them.

I went for my 5 week cut and color on Thursday... I've been going to the same stylist for years as it is hard to find someone who knows what they are doing with curly hair. She does a great job on my color and I should have learned this by now, I shouldn't talk to her while she's cutting my hair. She just keeps snipping and snipping and snipping and this time it is way shorter than I wanted... I know, I know it will grow out but right now it looks like a bubble cut Barbie from 1963... back then I had a platinum blonde one so I know what I'm talking about.... anyway just more annoyance...

As for doing crafty stuff...well that "not how I saw this going" also applies ... I spent a day tidying up my sewing area and vacuuming ... always improves things... I got 3 quilts bound... yeah... 2 more are waiting... and I decided to revisit the Momo quilt I started last March... this project never even got its own plastic bin... it was a just a pile on the top of the IKEA cart... so the pattern I was using was Fat Quarter Shuffle from Cluck Cluck Sew....sorry for the grainy picture ... you can find the pattern here.

Now I knew it would be a busy quilt but I like busy so I thought it would be fine.... and it is in a small dose with quiet fabrics but not as a full size bed quilt with fabrics that are all screaming  "LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME"... you can see the evidence here when I had half of the quilt on the design wall... 

There is no place for your eye to take a break... these blocks desperately needed some quiet space...I was determined to do something with them as I had made 54 of them... 54 BIG 10 x 14 " blocks... so I took them off the wall and looked to see what I had in my stash that I could use... I'm really trying to sew with what I already own this year... I found 3 yards of a creamy white with a fuzzy polka dot (and I know you can't see that in the pictures)  and this is what I came up with...

And here are some of the individual blocks... I like this pattern because there are some LARGE scale prints and this shows them off...

Okay this I can live with... it isn't real exciting but it is pleasant and after it is quilted and washed it will be a nice quilt... but I still had over 30 blocks left over, soooooooo... I went back to the pattern and put together a throw version... this hasn't been sewn together yet...

Not too bad in a smaller format. I had purposely not included the blocks that had a big splotch of the light fabrics in the first re-do as I didn't want them to bleed into those BIG cream white blocks, so all of them are in this top.  I'm going to get these sewn together and put a back together and take the two tops to Delinda this week... she has a finished quilt waiting for me and I like to have something to drop off when I go and pick up. 

As for decorating I do have my snowmen out... here's some of my displays... not much of any new stuff so I challenged myself to not put everything where it was last year...  I was about 50% successful in that challenge, but some stuff like that big snowman cookie jar only fit in one place...

Lots of cute stuff but it needs a cross stitched piece... gotta work on that...

Some cute Prairie Schooler snowmen...

the monthly piece from Hands on Designs... I'm so glad I stitched the entire year of these ... I enjoy changing them out and making a little vignette with them each month. 

Today we are celebrating my older son's 37th birthday... how did he get to be that old??? He has requested a meal of spaghetti and meatballs and I will be bringing them to his house at 4pm... I remember the day he was born was bitterly cold... so cold that they let me stay at the hospital an extra day ... so cold that the doctor on the floor didn't go home for 48 hours because his car in the parking garage was frozen and he couldn't get anyone to come and get it started... weather isn't that bad today... cold and a chance of a bit of snow... fingers crossed we have a mild winter... 

Well I hope things are starting out well for all of you... sorry to be a downer at the beginning of this post ... lets see where I am in 2 weeks... I have been enjoying sewing a lot even if the quilts are turning out exactly as I thought they would. I have a bunch of Debbie Mumm fabrics cut into  2.5" squares and ready to be assembled into 4 patches.  I have a plan for a new quilt for my younger son and I want to start a Spring quilt with yellow tulips for my living room wall in March... I've been knitting almost everyday... doing socks cause they are mindless and using just one skein of an Opal yarn... pretty stripes and again mindless... cross stitched here and there but having a hard time focusing ... worked on the Red Bird Sampler by WTN&T but had to change several of the floss colors... not sure I like my substitutions... put it aside and got out O Joyous Day by BBD... had more done than I remembered... think I'll stick with this for a while and get it done. 

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts and spend some time seeing what others are up to.  I'm sending all of you positive thoughts that 2022 is going to be a much better year for all of us!!!

happy stitching-

carol fun 

Starting off fine on a Slow Sunday...

 Happy New Year!!  I am so hoping that 2022 is waaaaay better than 2021 or 2020... I'm working on keeping a positive attitude even though my nature is to be skeptical...highly skeptical.. of what is going on in the world... I ask too many questions... and I think about stuff... My youngest son had the fantastic guidance counselor in high school and with my son being autistic we had almost daily conversations. Numerous times we would be discussing a situation and he's say to me, "there you go, thinking again...that will only get you into trouble"... so true...

I assume that many of you, like me, spent a quiet New Year's Eve at home... which was fine... and I spent my New Year's Day doing the stuff I LOVE to do... start the year out right... I did a little knitting... 

a pair of socks for me!!

I started a new cross stitch project... The Red Bird Sampler from With Thy Needle & Thread....

So I love the color of this fabric... I think it is Jobelan... its 32 ct... I dyed it and I haven't a clue what dyes I used to get the dusty turquoise... and yes it may be reading more gray here... but it is turquoise IRL...  I really should write things down... and while I love the called for  "red" threads ... DMC 817, 351 and 352...however,  they aren't red... they are coral... see the berries?... they are 817... see the flowers?... I stitched them in 816... more of a muted red... I like it much better... I'll change the other "reds" too...  And I'm going to change the initials P.H. to P.F. for my mom, Phyllis Funicelli... and I have an idea to add a two line alphabet at the bottom, because for me it isn't a sampler unless it includes the ABCs!  Well this will certainly have my personal stamp on it when I get done... It is a reproduction piece circa early to mid 1840's but no known provenance... so I don't feel too bad changing things. I wouldn't do that on a reproduction with provenance... which is why I don't stitch reproduction samplers because I would want to change something up... 

And I did some sewing and I got a project finish... now that would be a good omen for the year... I got the binding on my newest quilt, Mummville... my version of the Suburbs pattern by Cluck Cluck Sew that you can see here... 

LOVE the panto... it is called West Wind... and it mimics the swirls in that white on white fabric...

And I'm looking back on my past and the many Debbie Mumm quilts I've made... 

This stack is the result of at least 25 years of loving Debbie Mumm fabrics. I did a little research and Debbie took her first patterns to a Quilt Market in 1986... and her first book was published in 1991... and I think that is around the time I found her and fell in love. I think the first pattern of her's that I made was this Santa wall hanging... most but not all of the fabrics in this are DM.

And here is a little peek at some of my DM quilts... several of these are one block repeats like the dimensional bow ties, the cats, and the hexagons and the squares ... and EVERY SINGLE piece is a different DM... I told you I have a BIG stash...LOL... 

This isn't all of my DM quilts... I have one more with Delinda, she finished quilting it Friday... and I have one at my older son's house, and I have another cut out and ready to sew, and I have another I'm planning for my younger son.  And I'm still loving her stuff. I also have a lot of her decorative items... plates, candy dishes, teapots, cookie jars... I think her stuff is timeless...

I remember going to the big quilt show in Paducah around 1995... by that time I already had a nice sized stash of DM and I vowed NOT to buy any more, but every place we went into had beautiful DM fabric and it was so inexpensive... remember when fabric was only a couple of dollars a yard?  Heck I even remember bargains at 99 cents a yard!!! Anyway I bought sooooo much more DM... and I don't regret it at all. In my experience it isn't the fabric I bought that bothers me... it's the fabric I didn't buy!!  My friends still hear me whine about a quilt kit I saw another year at Paducah... it was fabric by KP Kids... animals, mostly pigs dressed up as farmers... The kit was a barn...and they were dancing... WHY DIDN'T I BUY IT???  It has haunted me for YEARS...LOL

So I'm happy I'm starting my year out doing the stuff I like and accomplishing something (but there are about 6 more quilts waiting for bindings...yikes!)... I'm working today to get the Christmas stuff put away and then I'll get the snowmen out... and I use the word "I' euphemistically ... by I, I mean, my younger son will tote bins up and down the stairs... he is such a good kid!

Fingers crossed that by the end of the week I'll have things put back together...  we have a chance of a bit of snow on Thursday... I'm okay either way... I don't have to have a snowy winter when I have my snowmen indoors... 

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today... and starting Monday I think my routine will settle in. The holidays are nice but those 2 weeks of Christmas and New Years always get me discombobulated... good thing my phone tells me what day it is!!

happy stitching-

carol fun 

Retrospective ramblings...

So another year comes to a close...and looking back I did accomplish quite a bit but for the entire year I felt as if I wasn't making much progress on anything. If I had to apply a word to 2021 for me I'd chose malaise... "a general feeling of discomfort, illness, or uneasiness whose exact cause is difficult to identify."  I spend waaaaay too much time on the internet... so many many many things interest me... quilting, cross stitch, knitting, crafty stuff, politics, the economy, covid, etc etc etc... hours fly by as I end up down a rabbit hole... I learn a lot but I'm always annoyed with myself that I didn't spend the time more productively and I'd have something tangible to show.  

All year I've wanted to plan a vacation, but I've hesitated because of everything that is happening... and I'm tired of not being optimistic about the future... That said, my son and I ARE going to do another trip to DisneyWorld in 2022...maybe Spring to see the Flower & Garden Festival or the Food & Wine Festival... I try to pick times with lower crowds... and don't think Disney isn't for adults... OMG... the landscaping everywhere is so pretty, and we ate our way through Epcot the last time we went... and had a bunch of wonderful meals at several of the resorts ... and walked my feet off!!

As for this blog... well I had more posts in 2021 than in 2020... and I think that I will continue to post here but probably not more than twice a month. If you want to see what I'm doing check me out on Instagram... carolfun53   ... I posted  almost every day in December (don't get use to that)... a parade of my Christmas quilts... and while I can write more here, my posts on IG are quite chatty too... to be honest, it is easier to post on IG and I get more engagement... but the blog is a repository of sooooo much of what I've done and it is more easily searchable... a sort of diary of my life since 2010... and life has changed a lot since then, hasn't it?

Okay so you didn't come here for my angst, so I'll step away from the ramblings and show you some pretty pictures... caveat:  some of these pictures are not as clear as I would like them to be... don't know what happens between when I send them from my phone to my laptop... I've been working on this post for 2 days... still waiting for the pictures I sent myself on Wednesday, but the pictures I sent this morning already popped up in my inbox... I DO NOT UNDERSTAND this... but for better pics of anything I posted here go check out my Instagram @carolfun53. 

Here's what my house looked like in December... very festive if I say so myself... I didn't get a lot of new cross stitch or new knickknacks but I do love what I have. 

As for crafty stuff my major project was the needlepoint Christmas stocking for my daughter in law, Jenny...

and I think it came out beautiful!... I meant to get a picture of all 3 of their stockings on their mantle but I forgot... 

As for crossstitch I'm going to start with the first piece I finished in 2021...put the last stitches in it in January... took it to the framer right after that... and only got it back this month... a symbol of the frustrations that sum up 2021... when I took it in I picked out this frame, but it was backordered forever, so I returned to the shop and picked out another frame... and it was backordered forever...and  in the end this is the original frame I picked out.

I do LOVE this piece... Heart & Hand by With Thy Needle & Thread.

I dyed the linen and I wish I knew what I did as I love the color... but all my dyeing is done by the seat of my pants. I have great respect for commercial dyers who can replicate a color... it ain't easy.

And I LOVE this piece from With Thy Needle & Thread... A Needleworker's Sampler... 

I painted this linen and replaced the little dog with a spool of thread. I am planning on re-doing the sampler wall in my crafty room... move things closer together so I can get more pieces up. 

And there was the Prairie Schooler Garden Alphabet No. 61... 

I started this during the lockdown in 2020...my plan was to stitch a block a day... didn't happen... took till June 2021 to finish... 

There were a couple of patriotic pieces... Flag Folk by Not Forgotten Farm...

and Hurrah from Pineberry Lane...

I brighten both of these up from the prim colors with linen I painted.

And Twas the Night before Christmas by Prairie Schooler... 

oh I do love Prairie Schooler... a comfort stitch every time!!

As for quilting I looked back and I did about a dozen quilts... not all are totally finished ... there is a stack of quilts (one or two from 2020) waiting for binding.. gonna try to knock some out early 2022. 

For some unknown reason I have been quite productive the last 2 weeks and I've made two throw sized quilts from my vintage Debbie Mumm fabrics... first one I'm calling Mummville as ALL the fabrics are from Debbie...

The pattern is Suburbs by Cluck Cluck Sew and you and find it here.  The quilting was done by Delinda at The T-Shirt Quilting company and you can find her here.  She does all the t-shirt memory quilt stuff and great pantos and custom quilting.   I'm able to drop off and pick up from her but she does lots of quilts through mail order. She's a real pleasure to work with. I've been very happy with everything she's done for me this year. 

And this one I'm calling Very Charming Stars... my version of the freebie pattern Charming Stars which you can find here. 

I started with a 6" square vs. 5" charm square and increased the size of my star points to 3.5" cut and used the connector corner technique. Like the previous quilt ALL Debbie Mumm fabrics... some of these are at least 25 years old... pieces from some of her first collections through the ones she did for Joann's ... I do like the older ones better but there weren't as many novelty prints as I thought so I used what I had. TWO entire FREE quilts... and I have a third one cut out... simple 9 patches... and I'm working on the design for a bed quilt for my son using my Debbies too.. 

As I went back through the multitude of pictures on my phone I really enjoyed looking at those of my gardens... aka the 2 front yards of my house. Since I live on the corner I have 2 front yards and no back yard to speak of... which when I moved here I thought would be an issue... but it isn't. I love having everything on display outside and it turns out that my neighbors love it too... here's is the front yard on the Gail Drive side...

and the front yard on the Matson Ave side... 

and some of my dahlias living up to their "dinnerplate" moniker...

and my pyramid of petunias looking pretty!

I have plans for the yard this coming year... I'm having outdoor lighting put in instead of the solar lights that are dependent on the whims of Mother Nature... and I'm having the raised bed where I plant lots of dahlias redone... going to be bricks and pavers... more permanent, as the plastic sides are bowing and coming loose. It will look fabulous, I'm sure!!

I don't do New Year's resolutions... but I do like to think about what I want to do in the upcoming year.  Since in the last 2 weeks I've sewn 2 and worked on another 2 quilts from my stash, well, I'm going to try to work more out of my stash.  I have so many many many pretty fabrics... American Jane, Anna Maria Horner, Tilda, Momo, Bonnie & Camille... just to name a few... and plenty of quilt ideas... oh I'm sure there will be temptation through out the year (I gave into temptation yesterday and ordered this quilt kit... see here ... and the FQ bundle of the collection Christmas Joys by Lindsay Wilkes for Riley Blake... it won't come till June or July... so I can do Christmas in July!)  And I looked ahead to see what Moda has coming down the pike and there is a new Basic Grey Christmas collection, Peppermint Bark,   I MUST have IT!! ...you can see it here on page 62.  And American Jane has a new collection this year, I always get at least a layer cake of her stuff. 

And I have the same plans for cross stitch... so many many many charts I already have.  I want to finish up some pieces I've started, maybe even work on one of the multi- piece Blackbird Designs Loose Feathers series ... I have 2 of those series started... and I'm sure the designers will tempt me with new stuff. Brenda Gervais at With Thy Needle & Thread blows me away... and I have a ton of her charts already. An abundance of riches!!

So I need to keep myself off the computer and spend more time with my needles & threads & fabrics & yarn (and while I haven't shown any pics I've knitted about a dozen pairs of socks this year and one lonely shawl, which needs to be blocked).  

I so hope that 2022 is better for everyone than 2020 and 2021... I know realistically we are off to a rough start... but I'll keep the prayers coming that we turn a corner on all of this very soon. I'm going to contact the nice travel agent I worked with last time to put together a vacation... and I'm hoping for some quilt shows in 2022. I miss walking around and shopping at the vendors... oh, the quilts are nice too, but it is always the vendors first for me...LOL... and I'm going to stitch and sew and knit ... and probably eat more chocolate than I should but a day without chocolate is a day that wasn't worth getting out of bed!

Thank you to all you sweet people who read my ramblings and leave comments... and I know that leaving comments can be tricky at times... I put all the blame on Blogger... I will move into 2022 with  my fingers crossed for brighter days for ALL of us!!

happy stitching-

carol fun